Put Your Game Together: Ethical Management in Youth Sports and Business

By Donnie Howell

Donnie Howell was the kid who was raised on food stamps with little parental guidance. He discovered at a young age his needs would only be met through hard work and a game called football. In Put Your Game Together, Donnie puts together his story of childhood struggles and the lessons he learned along the way to illustrate how to achieve success in a fair and ethical way.

Donnie Howell discovered that his success in business came from treating people fairly and responsibly. He applies these principles to coaching young people in football and adds another ingredientparents. Most coaches of youth football want to keep parents on the outside looking in, but not Donnie, he gets the parents involved. Whatever the taskmanaging a business or coaching kidshe believes that a leader who practices ethical behavior and builds a program fair to all will be successful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781440193460

Donnie Howell

Donnie Howell is a business partner in Bayview Environmental and Demo Masters, both are now employee-owned. He coached youth and high school football for twelve years where he incorporated the same ethics and principals he used to build these successful businesses. He and his wife, Leslie, live in Clayton, California.

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Contents

1 Becoming a Winner

2 Building the Right Base

3 Getting with Your Plan

4 Think About It First

5 Let Them Be Proud Too

6 It’s Their Time

7 Stand Up and Be Heard

8 Stay Calm When Pressure Hits

9 Sharing Your Experiences

10 Giving Support

11 Camp Concord for Moms

12 Repeat It Constantly

13 Guidance Through Football

14 Respect Brings Respect

15 The Good Times

16 Saving Our Programs

17 Stating the Obvious

Explanation Sheet

Parent Cheat Sheet

Seasonal Program Contract

About the Author

Born in Richmond, California, Donnie Howell is the kid who was raised on food stamps and little parental guidance. He discovered at a young age his needs would only be met through hard work and a game called football. In this book, Donnie puts together his story of childhood struggles and the lessons he learned along the way. A 1979 graduate of Pinole Valley High School in Northern California, Donnie received many high school football awards and achieved many accomplishments, such as setting the single-season record for quarterback sacks (twenty-five).

In 1993, he and his business partners started Bayview Environmental Services Inc., followed by Demo Masters Inc. in 2001. Combined, Bayview Environmental and Demo Masters employ over 200 people in what is now an employee-owned company.

Donnie has coached youth and high school football for twelve years, retiring in 2006. He incorporated the same ethics and principles as he did in managing and building these successful businesses. He has said, If you want to get involved, then get involved with a passion to be fair to everyone and build a plan that proves it.

Along with his wife Leslie, the Howells now reside in Clayton, California, and vacation at their home in Rubicon Bay at Lake Tahoe, California, as much as they can.

Introduction

I believe that our kids, when signing up for a youth sport, are entitled to have fun. I believe that our kids have the right to a program that is built and designed by adults for their enjoyment. I also believe the parents and coaches are entitled to a good time as well. So why are our youth sports programs becoming such a mental drain to us, and why are our favorite pastimes becoming a burden?

I think good people are getting confused with winning and what winning really is about. We all want wins on the scoreboard and we all want the kids to have fun, but isn’t winning also learning techniques, developing skills, building relationships, and creating a passion for the game and the smiles on kids’ faces?

Building a winning program is not about building something just so it can win. It’s about building something that creates winning character. Something everyone will buy into, and when they do, you and the people around you will be winners on the field and in life.

There are many stories in this book that will point out the many ways we need to focus on our own principles and ethics in order to build something fair. I also believe we need to judge ourselves before we start judging others. Look at your plan and ask yourself if it is as fair to everyone as I can make it and then ask yourself, can everyone be a part of it and will they? And when you have it, go and find people like you to help run it.

When given the opportunity you should surround yourselves with people who have the same ethics and principles as you do. Coaching youth sports or building a business requires the involvement of many people, and it will require you to spend many hours with them, so keep it as pleasant as you can. Recruit as many people as you can who will get the job done and instill your same ethical standards.

I played youth football as a kid and I really enjoyed it; while playing I met some great coaches as well as friends that I hang around even to this day. The memories are all pretty good as far as the coaching and my teammates are concerned. I also played in high school at Pinole Valley High under two coaching greats, Jerry Dueker and Jim Erickson along with their assistant coaches Butch Campbell, Mike Anton, and Fred Brown. These coaches are very special to me and I’ll never forget them. They went out of their way to create fun for everyone, and they were winners too.

I have spent my twelve years doing my best to coach like they coached me. I’ve done my best to create a fun environment for the parents and the fans in our community as they did.

However, year after year, I could see things changing and coaches becoming more focused on the scoreboard winning; they were becoming more difficult to be around; and parents screamed from the stands at their own coaches. The young players have lost respect for the program and its coaching staff. What is going on and why?

This book will explain my thoughts on all this crazy madness and how we will fix it together and why we need more teams with good programs like Clayton Valley High and the new and improved Concord High Schools.

As a coach, I caught on to the teaching methods that Coach Deuker and Coach Erickson had in mind pretty fast. Although I found it through business.

While building the operations of my companies, Bayview Environmental and Demo Masters, I discovered the similarities. Coaching youth sports was very much like managing employees. We set out to build something fair and fun. We wanted our employees to enjoy work and we wanted employees who wanted to be challenged. Building a business is also developing relationships with the employees and clients. There are many ways you can bring in your life and business experiences into coaching. The tools are all around you if you want to build something enjoyable for everyone.

Build it the right way and you’ll meet plenty of good people that will apply your standards as their own. Longtime relationships are nice to have.

I started coaching for Head Football Coach Herc Pardi at Clayton Valley High School in 1999. He was great to work with, and I still have some great memories there. My wife Leslie and I still spend plenty of good times with Coach and his wife Roxanne. We are together at parties and dinner outings as well as vacations at Lake Tahoe. I enjoy the time Coach and I spend talking about how things have changed since our playing days and how we still like being around the game. Discussing X’s and O’s is one of our favorite pastimes. Roxanne Pardi still performs by singing the National Anthem before some of the Clayton Valley High School football games. Leslie and I still enjoy going to watch the kids play football at the local high schools on Friday nights. Some of our favorites are Clayton Valley, Concord High, and San Ramon Valley, mostly because of our personal or family ties. We will even go to a Lake Tahoe Lakers game now and then, located in Lake Tahoe, California. Leslie and I have a cabin in Rubicon Bay and will drive the thirty minutes or so if they are playing at home on a Saturday. I will confess it’s been a while since we have seen them play; I hope their program is doing well.

During my first year coaching at Clayton Valley, Coach Pardi asked me to be the defensive coordinator on the freshman team. I went over to meet with the freshman head coach, Sam Williams, and noticed he was working by himself, no other coaches in sight; he was coaching the entire team by himself.

I’ll never forget that first day I went over to him and introduced myself. I said, Hey, Coach. I’m Donnie Howell and I’ve been asked to help you with the team; I can see you could use some defensive help.

He said, Yep. Good timing too. It’s defensive day, and you’re up.

I don’t understand, I said. What do you want me to do?

He responded, It’s defensive day. Tomorrow is offensive day. You’re up.

I explained to him the only thing I could do with this short notice was what I’ve been working on at the youth level, and that was mostly form tackling, conditioning drills, and ball handling.

He said, They need to know that too. Some of these kids are playing for the first time, and that is what I believe we should be doing anyway, you know, getting these kids ready to move up next year.

I liked what I was hearing. I have always enjoyed working with Sam, his ethics and his principles go unmatched, and the joy he gathered for himself when helping kids can never be compared. We have remained friends ever since that first day. He and his wife JoAnne have a son, also named Sam, who was drafted into the NFL by the Oakland Raiders.

Russ Galvin was and still is one of those guys you just have to love. This coach worked only for the kids and could care less what you thought about it. He wasn’t one of those coaches who worried about the parents thinking he was a neat guy or anything like that. No, he just wanted the kids to learn proper football skills, and he wanted them to have a great time doing it.

Russ and I hit it off pretty well during our coaching years, and we had many of them.

We would sit around for hours after coaching youth football practices and just talk defensive football deep into some nights. His son Brock (who now plays football at U.C. Davis) would be at his side most of the time, saying, Come on, Dad. I have school tomorrow. Can we go now?

Russ and I were talking during one of our many nights after practice and I recalled him doing something earlier that day with one of the players. He was having a discussion with one of the kids, and I wanted to ask him what the talk was about. So I did. He said, I always try to find a kid who is having some trouble and ask if I can help him. You see, things happen at home, and these kids get overlooked. I could tell his practice was way off from yesterday. As it turned out, the kid did have some minor problems at home. I found it really odd, you see, because I do the same thing and thought I saw it in Russ by the way he spoke to the kid. I knew right then this guy was true blue and he was in it for the right reasons.

I would find at least one kid every year who had some kind of home problems such as an abusive dad or a single-parent household, or who was a tough kid with a chip on his shoulder.

If I could help find one or two kids a year and get them and their families through the football season one day at a time and make it as fun as possible, then to me the season would be a winner, and that is what I also saw in Russ. He and Sam Williams are the kind of people who take pride in developing kids and players, so be selective when you have the chance to choose who will be around you and your athletes.

Building a business or a sports program starts with good knowledgeable people, the kind of people who have good ethics, good principles, and the desire to build something fair and fun for everyone.

Acknowledgments

Writing this book would never have happened had it not been for the persistent guidance and support of some very close friends like John Gregerson, Mike Peixoto, Mitch Larsen, Kristi Anderson, Steve Tuite, Gary Torretta, Jay Randall, Kurt Crigger, Tom Kennon, Sam Williams, Rick Cleveland, Michael Christie, Marvin Henderson, Pat Broderick, and Dennis Lee. To my brother Kevin, thanks for standing by me then and for standing by me now. I truly appreciate your never-ending support.

I also want to thank Nikki Crigger for reviewing and correcting the book. None of us would have ever understood what I was trying to say if not for her work.

Thank you as well to Mark McCullah for listening to me and taking my calls day after day whenever an idea came jumping into my head.

A special thank you to Russ Galvin, who told me to write this book for the benefit of others. His inspiration gave me the confidence to keep going. I hope I reached his level of passion to do the right thing in this book.

Thanks to my mother Barbara Lundquist; she’s always in my corner and has always been my biggest fan.

Thanks to all the coaches I have worked for and with. I’ve enjoyed our friendships, and I’m thankful for the opportunities in coaching this great game. Thank you to Herc and Roxanne Pardi for your continued support and friendship.

Thanks to my sons Nick and Blake; I’ve enjoyed spending time with you guys both as a father and as a coach. But the biggest thank you is to my wife Leslie. Her unwavering love for me and the support she gives me with all of my crazy plans have helped me be the man I am today. We have been married for twenty-eight years, and she truly is my best friend. We got married at the ages of nineteen (her) and twenty (me) and have grown together happily ever since. We love our football seasons and we love our friends who do too. I also want to thank her for her part in making this a book that everyone should read.

1

Becoming a Winner

We all have hopes of being a successful person in the eyes of our peers and colleagues. Nobody sets out to be the coach who failed or the person who started a business that failed, so why do some fail? Because they are inconsistent with their decision making, they are not consistent in their principles, and they lack the courage to stay with their own created programs during the implementation period. They prefer to change in the direction of quick results rather than to ride out the learning curve.

The learning curve is extremely important because that is when it gets tested the most. If you allow yourself to alter or change your programs during the implementation period, then you are letting everyone involved with your programs know that with the right amount of pressure, you’ll make changes to your programs from now on. Going forward, those programs are always challengeable.

As coaches, we want the parents to be proud of our work, and we would like the players to be proud of the program as well. Coaches generally feel they don’t get enough credit or praise for the long hours they put into making a program great. In some cases, that is true. However, some coaches don’t want to listen to others when it’s obvious the program isn’t working either. You don’t hear them taking the blame for a program going badly, do you?

Let’s stop worrying about credit and praise, and let’s start worrying about taking some pride and ownership in what we are doing. Put pride on your side by doing the right things, and over time, you will get all the respect you can handle. If you don’t have pride in the fact that you’re doing the best job you can, and you haven’t been dedicated and diligent in building a program that is designed to be fair to every single player, then you probably are not really working that hard at it and everyone knows it. If you are not 100 percent confident and proud of yourself, then why would you think someone else owes you compliments?

Let’s start with being proud of what we are doing. Let’s start with doing the right things the right way. Let’s start by being committed to our principles and ethics. If you start with a mind-set for these things and you are committed to them for the duration of time, then you’ll come out a winner, guaranteed.

Becoming a winner is not solely measured with victories. Victories are important and definitely make for a fun season, but you can also have a fun, successful season with everyone learning the game and competing. I’m all for winning games, just like anyone. Winning is more fun than losing; we all know that. The point here is that winning a game will not make you a winner. The victories will come, but that won’t make you a winner. Winners have plans and winners stick to their plans because they believe in their plans, and soon others believe in their plans, and when that happens, they develop a team of believers.

You have to get respect from the players, and you have to get respect from the parents, and you have to get it because you’re doing the right things.

You have been committed to the principles and ethics you set out to demonstrate. You have been thoughtful to the program and thoughtful to all the players involved, and you have stayed true to it over time. As your players and their parents see over time that you are committed to making kids better, and they see you take on challenges that come your way, over time, with consistency, they will start to learn what you are really about. I said over time because becoming a winner is just that: a long journey of consistent behavior, a long journey of decisions being made with good principles and ethics, tough decisions being made over time that are consistent with your beliefs, and staying true to your word and actions through good days and bad days.

Whether you have a firm personality or a meek personality doesn’t matter. What matters is you are consistent with your decision making, and you constantly stay fair to the individuals involved. You don’t waver on your programs because you put your principles and ethics into them already. You know what is best for everyone in the program because you thought about it and you employed the ideas from your coaching staff and your parents when you put it together. You asked everyone to get involved and be a part of the new program, and over time, they will be there